


In Our Narrow Seats

by reogulus



Category: Community (TV)
Genre: Gen, Missing Scene
Language: English
Status: Completed
Published: 2015-05-10
Updated: 2015-05-10
Packaged: 2018-03-29 20:01:41
Rating: General Audiences
Warnings: No Archive Warnings Apply
Chapters: 1
Words: 2,539
Publisher: archiveofourown.org
Story URL: https://archiveofourown.org/works/3908752
Author URL: https://archiveofourown.org/users/reogulus/pseuds/reogulus
Summary: <blockquote class="userstuff">
              <p>“So is it safe to assume that you’re bunking with me to speed up the assumed eventuality that we will all live together in a small apartment in blatant disregard for the building’s fire code,” A beat. “I call that the Friends endgame. It’s the verse where I have the highest probability of figuring out who and or what you’re really texting.”</p>
            </blockquote>





	In Our Narrow Seats

**Author's Note:**

> Post-season 5. An attempt to address Shirley's departure from Jeff's point-of-view, and subsequently Abed's. Continuity with season 6 optional. Thanks again to the wonderful transversely for helping to midwife this fic into the world!

 

all through the tedious denouement  
to the unsurprising end— riveted, as it were;  
spellbound by our own imperfect lives  
because they are lives,  
and because they are ours.

Robyn Sarah, _Riveted_

 

* * *

 

**The note.**

 

Ever since foosball, Shirley had been leaving him memos sometimes, such as sticky notes in the locker or cue cards in the binder. Over time Jeff got in the habit of checking for them like one might check for car keys before leaving home.

On Thursday, after the announcement of Shirley's move to Atlanta, he's getting ready to extricate himself from the habit, like taking off the proverbial Rolex to tuck into the box on his last day at the law firm. Back then Jeff certainly wouldn't have believed it’d be his last day in the building _for good_ if his own future self had appeared in the bathroom mirror and told him. But this time, Shirley is the one on her way out, and much better prepared for it than he was.

He’d bet she has trouble making up her mind about it, if she hadn't always known better—known what she wanted, wants.

 

“You know there’s only one place we're having my going away party at,” she says over lunch. They typically have their private lunches on Tuesdays, but this is the day for an exception if he’s going to make one.

Jeff smiles. “Yeah, you know you’d get more discounts than Britta and me combined.”

“Oh, the four of you and that bar...and Troy, and Pierce,” with a deep chuckle, Shirley folds her hands in her lap. “That's the most history I've had in Colorado.”

“History as you've made it, Shirley.” He tilts at a specific angle so that sunlight hits the back of his neck through the tree branches. “Congratulations, ma’am.”

She hugs him, with a tenderness she has never shown easily. “Troy may be sending Abed pretty pictures from around the world, but I don't do postcards, Jeff. I'll write.”

“Of course,” replies Jeff. “I'm counting on it.

 

All through Thursday Jeff wonders if Abed will be as concerned about the Jeff that misses Shirley, like he is about the Abed that misses Troy. That's the yet-to-happen conversation he thinks about, lying in bed, fighting his brain about associating the scent of night cream with nervous nostalgia.

When he was first appointed a professor, he wanted to teach—he just didn't know it, couldn't come to the conclusion on his own. It was one of those impulses that enabled Greendale to shape his life the way it did; he'd find the thing he wanted to do, but it had to be thrust upon him like a means to an end. Some might call that lucky.

It went something like this: Dean had waltzed into the study room and offered him the job, he'd said something cute and everyone had laughed. Shirley had too and she was, in fact, the first person Jeff looked to upon hearing the words. After the standard shenanigans passed and he headed for the locker to grab his jacket, the note was on the mirror: DO IT, written in dry-erase.

At the study room table things are spoken because they are called for, either exciting or par for the course. Other things called for are better exchanged at other places and times, usually disagreements not meant to be confrontational—she knows he hates being given advice. Again, over time, he’s learned to take them like medicine, or the aftertaste of kale smoothies.

He’d traced the letters with his finger, the smudges on his fingertip making a point. Then he turned to the opposite end of the hallway towards the Dean’s office.

 

There's a backlog of Britta's messages in his voicemail, so she can scoff at the obviousness if she ever finds out. He’s never really needed to go back to them, but there is this one that she left him after the last psych practice Britta did on him for her Behavioural Analysis module. Her diagnosis during the session was completely off, and she handed it in as part of her assignment. But later she called him saying, “Jeff, you’re afraid of _wanting_ things so you always act like you deserve whatever you get because you saw it a mile off.” That was not untrue, and impressive for a Britta observation before happy hour, so he put up with the smug tone of her voice.

But the whole truth is, he's been getting better at wanting things since he's improved on dealing with loss. Perhaps not so much exercise required when Pierce passed away, but certainly for Troy's departure; and now, Shirley.

People want things enough to risk leaving. He’s borne witness to enough of that to learn how, somewhat.

 

“Shirley,” Jeff calls out to her, heading to the parking lot. She turns towards him with an inquisitive look and starts saying something like “I already made the reservation for Sunday”. Jeff interrupts her; of course he’s not concerned about the logistics of _that._ He reaches for her wrist, slips a note into her hand, then runs for the car.

It simply says _thank you_. Shirley Bennett needs no other input.

 

 

 

* * *

 

**The toothbrush.**

 

Here is the inventory of Jeff’s things in Abed’s apartment thus far: a tube of night cream, the socks that have a pair of billiard sticks printed on their bottoms, some popped tags from the Gap. It should be noted that in taking inventory of this nature, garbage also counts. And now, on Saturday 2:27pm, along with the plastic-paper wrapping in the trash can, an electric toothbrush is added to the list.

So this just confirms the obvious. Jeff, ever so subtle, is doing the shotgun-calling equivalent of occupying shared living space, not that Britta is serious competition. Shirley’s farewell party at L Street on Sunday will signal the beginning of the actual collapse inward of the study group.

Abed walks out of the bathroom. He’s been checking there for a toothbrush or teasing comb since Wednesday, when Jeff suddenly showed up on his and Annie’s doorstep at 10pm, sober as a cat, citing a clearly Wingered reason asking to crash in their living room. The next morning, Shirley announced to the table that she is heading down to Atlanta.

 

Correlation does not necessarily imply causation, that much Abed knows.

 

When Annie started to cry after Shirley’s announcement on Thursday, they both pulled handkerchiefs from their pockets, Jeff and him. Shirley chose the one with a lighter shade of purple, almost a lavender, dabbing Annie’s cheeks while holding her. The look Jeff gave him in that moment was one that Abed often replays in his mind afterwards, thinking about how he would frame it in a shot, the way lighting needs to be positioned so it complements instead of upstages Jeff’s eyes. The thought occurred to Abed while in the group hug before heading off to class, maybe not for the first time, that he wanted to be in Jeff’s shoes for the duration of the hug. To be the tallest person in the huddle, and therefore intimately comprehending how small it has, and will become. The instant body-switching did not happen, regrettably. He maneuvered his palm across Jeff’s back until he felt the centre of tension in the muscles, and pressed on it before backing away.

On Friday evening Jeff showed up again, this time with a Family Bucket and booze instead of excuses. Abed buzzed Jeff in but Annie was the one that rushed to the door, not so much as glanced at the fast food despite turning over the couch cushion for their last bag of pretzels just ten minutes ago. Abed thumbed through the _Inspector Spacetime_ DVDs on the shelf to leave them more time together in the kitchen, where Jeff opened the bottle and Annie took out the plates. He decided to put on the Independence Day special, an episode that he would rather not go through alone.

The booze was almost gone when Annie passed out in the armchair, credits rolling on the TV. Jeff rose from his seat, steadied himself and pulled Annie up, whose head slumped naturally on his shoulder. Then he lifted Annie up by knees and shoulders, and Abed followed him into the bedroom.

 

After Annie was laid down Abed reached for the corner of the covers, tucking her in while Jeff fished the phone out of his pocket, on cue of the buzz. Some quick keystrokes later he said, “I gotta go, Britta needs me to pick up a change of clothes for her. She’s spending the night at the vet’s, cat’s got a bladder stone.”

“Which one?” Abed asked. It was part of his ongoing project to chart the oscillation of all her cats’ health conditions, hopefully gathering enough data to complete the model before they’ve all run their natural lives.

“I would tell you, but by doing so I’d prove I know the names of her cats, so,” Jeff took a moment to calculate the pause, then paused. “Sorry buddy.”

“Right,” Abed nodded. “So how much longer do you think Britta can last without clean underwear?”

Jeff gave him a look. “Are you asking, or do you have something else planned for me?.”

 

Abed didn’t make a photo wall like the Instagram girls would, but in time he accumulated enough of these that they warranted a collection of some sort. Troy sent postcards, sun-kissed skin and smile glossy on the paper, some words scribbled inside: “Saw a giant squid today!!!” “This sandwich was awesome” “I never even knew the human body could do THIS”. Always miraculously under 140 characters.

“These are basically printed tweets,” Jeff commented, another drink in hand.

Abed nodded, shuffling through the shoebox. He kept it under the bunk-bed, figured that was where Troy would put it if they traded places. Not that he’d travel all around this world, but if it were possible to send corporeal postcards from the multitudes of worlds in the Dreamatorium, he would.

“Must be nicer in there now,” Jeff poured over the photos over his shoulder. “All that space to simulate anything you want, not having to account for any variables that you didn’t create yourself.”

Abed put two and two together. “Annie told you about the Dreamatorium.”

“Yeah...that’s why I came over on Wednesday, originally. I wanted to try it out—imagine for myself what our group would be like if Shirley—” Jeff didn’t finish the sentence. “I couldn’t figure out how to work it, so here I am now. Still here, still on the outskirts.”

“It’s nicer, I suppose,” replied Abed. “But after Shirley leaves, I don’t think I will need the whole closet to house the mechanism. It’d be more economical to downsize; if you are to live here for the long-term, Jeff, I don’t imagine you intend to sleep in the blanket fort every night.”

He looked to Jeff and Jeff looked comically offended and it made Abed want to laugh. “I don’t think anyone planned for us to end up in this timeline,” he said, earnestly, as if explaining quantum physics to a nine-year-old. “Look at the pictures, Jeff. Carefully. The contents of this shoebox are more beautiful than anything Troy, or you, or I could have planned. Stuff that only the prime timeline is capable of.”

There was silence, then the sound of Jeff’s cup being drained. And finally the concession, “Yeah.”

 

In Jeff’s absence he’d run the simulation a million times, calculating how big the new Dreamatorium should be. The conclusive result was that if it fits a refrigerator, it should fit him. Downsizing is not synonymous with downgrading. The easier side of the argument is that this is no longer the prime timeline; maybe it’s not even one of the better timelines. But it’s the timeline where Jeff Winger’s toothbrush is in Abed Nadir’s bathroom, and it’s the timeline in which that still means something.

 

“You got a toothbrush.”

With the both of them lying in bed, Abed says it, Saturday night, before the clock strikes midnight. With his eyes closed, he’s picturing a stone hurled into water. From top bunk to bottom, he used to picture tossing a football.

“I did.”

The stone skips once.

“So is it safe to assume that you’re bunking with me to speed up the assumed eventuality that we will all live together in a small apartment in blatant disregard for the building’s fire code,” A beat. “I call that the _Friends_ endgame. It’s the verse where I have the highest probability of figuring out who and or what you’re really texting.”

“What other endgames are there?”

Twice.

“At least thirteen others, maybe more, depending on whether the study group grows again.”

Another beat. “I don’t like to think of us as a revolving door.”

Upon the third contact, the bounce grows weak.

“People go through doors so they may leave. Our friends go through—us.”

Now the stone sinks. It has gone far enough.

 

“Jeff.” 

“Yes?” 

“I’m keeping the shoebox, so we can make a special collage edition of _Friends Weekly_ when Troy gets back. There is a high likelihood that it will become an item of collectible value when Troy becomes more famous than Levar Burton, which is only a matter of time. I’m telling you this to prove that this is a decision of solid investment value so you won’t hesitate to sleep on it.” The pause lingers and he breathes through it. “Any time you like.”

 

 

 

* * *

 

**The afterparty.**

 

The cliche is, you take something apart and put it back, but one of the pieces that makes up the whole no longer fits in the bigger system. The cliche doesn’t tell you that that piece is always the one you clutch in your sweaty palm, holding the closest from beginning to end. You’ve extracted it, made it an outsider along with yourself.

These are the thoughts running through your head with your friend in the passenger seat, playing drunker than he is so the party ends before it goes from sad to depressing. When the bar shrinks into a dot in the rear view mirror, you can feel his relief. Now, truly, everyone has had their fun. Memories made picture perfect, everyone put back together like clockwork.

You glance at his face, half-buried in shadows. You’ve run off with that piece; the system functions without it, but now it will never be the same.

The road stretches on until you hit the intersection, where turning one way leads to your apartment and the other his. Without hesitation you drive straight ahead, at which point your friend opens his eyes. Sober as a cat.

 

“So now what?”

“Now we go forward.”

“If you’re trying to do the driving-off-to-the-sunset thing, maybe we should have something on the horizon to drive towards instead of...pitch black.”

“We will. We just have to go on long enough.”

 

You pull over, take the phone from your pocket, and check the weather app. Sunrise is in two hours. You show him the screen, and he sets a timer, counting down.

He puts the phone on the dashboard, hits start. Synchronized, you put your foot to the gas pedal.

 


End file.
